<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Future by Xenomorphic</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25233436">Future</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenomorphic/pseuds/Xenomorphic'>Xenomorphic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Game Over [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Drabble/Ficlet, Gen, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:13:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>698</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25233436</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenomorphic/pseuds/Xenomorphic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did you know he was gonna do that?”</p><p>“I knew he was gonna do something.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes &amp; Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes &amp; Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Game Over [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1476059</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Future</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: I own nothing, nothing at all, regarding Marvel Comics or the MCU; I just like them characters.<br/>You may read this as pre-slash or not, as you please. Personally, although I kinda ship them, I don't think this fits the bill, but interpretations are one's own alone.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Did you know?” Sam asks you a few weeks later, sitting face to face in a coffeehouse in Chicago, neutral ground. “Did you know he was gonna do <em>that</em>?”</p><p>You stare back at him for a moment, sip your coffee.</p><p>“I knew he was gonna do <em>something</em>.”</p><p>It’s a start, you think.</p><p>*</p><p>Without Steve, you’re a little lost.</p><p>Admittedly, you were more than a little lost even before it, when you were hiding in plain sight or farming in Wakanda, it never mattered where or when or with whom, you were always lost and somewhat cracked. You meant it when you said you were semi stable.</p><p>Sam is helpful, though.</p><p>In the couple of years after the Accords, you kept in touch with Steve, not as often as you’d like, but still, and sometimes Sam would be somewhere in the background: tinkering with his gear, eating, even sleeping a couple of times. He would offer a commentary, a quip, on whatever story Steve was telling you, sometimes, but that was the most you two ever interacted and for all intents and purposes, Steve, the Armed Forces and being fugitives where about the only things you both had in common.</p><p>So, when Steve removes himself from that equation, it’s understandable that you’d think that <em>that</em> was it; unless T’Challa and Wakanda take you back, you were on your own.</p><p>You underestimate Sam. You underestimate him by a lot.</p><p>“I could use some help, you know?”</p><p>“Do I?” You ask, still confounded as to how Sam got a hold of this supposedly unattainable phone number. Your main suspects are Steve and T’Challa, maybe Shuri too.</p><p>“Look, I’m not trying to make you do this or anything like that, highly doubt I could do that even if I wanted to.”</p><p>You roll your eyes and maybe Sam will <em>hear</em> it when you say “Don’t sell yourself short, Sam.”</p><p>“I’m not, I’m just being realistic. I’m good, but I’m not World War II, Howling Commando, Soviet-Hydra assassin good. But that’s not what I’m trying to say. Yeah, you’re top in my list of people I think could help me with this whole Captain America thing, once you disqualify the dead and the arthritic, but if you really want to get back to your quiet farm life in Wakanda and leave all of this behind, well, I can’t force you otherwise, wouldn’t want to even if I could, that’d make me as bad as Hydra.”</p><p>It’s the most Sam, or almost anyone lately, has told you in one go, and it must mean something, you think.</p><p>“I’ll– I’ll think about it.”</p><p>*</p><p>“What do you want?” Steve asks you a few months later, sitting face to face at the small coffee table in his quaint little cottage. “After everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve been <em>put</em> through, what do you want?”</p><p>That question follows you on your way to Upstate New York and Sam.</p><p><em>What do you want</em>?</p><p>*</p><p>“You can’t deny your past,” Sharon Carter tells you once, in that tired tone that comes from old discussions, even though this is the first time you two talk about the subject outside of legalities and technicalities.</p><p>“But I don’t have a past.”</p><p>She gives you a confused look that kind of reminds you of Steve and you can see Sam leaning against a doorway a ways back, for once giving you an encouraging look instead of a sad one. You run with it.</p><p>“The Winter Soldier, he has a past, a history. All I have are regrets and traumas and this panicky feeling I get whenever I remember something I was brainwashed to do. I haven’t had a full night’s rest without pills since Washington because I have nightmares all the time. I wake up screaming in the middle of the night, I even wake Sam up.”</p><p>She keeps a straight face, but you know her well enough by now to notice the little wobbly grimace she does with her mouth when something upsets her. You’re fine with her being upset, just as long as she doesn’t pity you.</p><p>“I <em>don’t have</em> a past, Sharon. They took it from me. I just want a future.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>